The follow on from iOS 4 Cookbook, which I thoroughly enjoyed by Vandad Nahavandipoor, is the opposite of what you might find being the more concise O'Reilly books on specific iOS topics, that I normally review. Depending on how your mind operates, this book may be an excellent first book, otherwise it makes an even greater secondary reference book. It is certainly not concise, but it doesn't have the problem that normal iOS books have of going through chapter by chapter skimming certain topics, this one has it all.  It goes through the normal problem-->solution-->discussion process to allow you to quickly identify which topic matches your needs and then explains that topic concisely with an example, rather than go through all the fluff. The fluff is left for the discussion part in case you wanted to know more. But if this isn't your ideal way of learning, in a non-linear but contextual method, then keep this book as a reference.

This 116-page book is well written, with a very important chapter that is something not a lot of developers appreciate. Automating test builds, using open-source tools such as Hudson is something that is lacking in many development environments and not very-well documented generally, so it's impressive that it is included here. I generally find having a shelf of specialised books rather than a general iOS book to be more useful as you don't generally find the entire book relevant whereas specialised books are something you pick out because it's specifically more relevant to you and contains content that are generally either 'skimmed-over' or missed out completely by the more general books. 

I give mr Roche four thumbs up, and if I had a half a thumb I'd add that as well. I don't think there is much more that could have been added to the book, although i would have liked to have seen alternative integration tools such as Atlassian Bamboo referenced, but perhaps once again that may be left for another specialised book, dealing with iOS Testing.

This book centralises the science of designing interfaces, void of any specific platform or device but rather allows the reader to think spatially in terms of UX for the thumb. The Mobile developer will be able to follow the various topics or 'best practices' in a familiar theme of Problem-> Solution, with commentary and options following that. Some of the topics are quite basic, stale and non-exciting but if you can follow the book and skip over sections you don't feel is appropriate for you, then this book accumulatively is great.

I recommend this book, because it forces developers and designers to go through the basics they thought was right, re-think that and adjust, rather than cut corners and dive into the excitement of mobile development. I would take my time and read each chapter on my down time and learn something new, rather than dedicate a whole chunk of my time in one go to it. It's the type of book that is a reference than a page-to-page necessity. If you are working on an iOS, Android or Mobile Web App, this book provides themes that are device-independent in a thoughtful, comprehensive and mechanical approach. 

Designing Mobile Interfaces

 

There are various aspects to hosting the application, client-side, and it's infrastructure requirements, using Flash as an example, or HTML5, as well as server-side, and a combination of both. What is good about this book, is that the author provides various case-studies, to emphasise good v.s bad design as well as explore privacy issues associated with mapping user profile data to your application.